ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
1) YHBT YHL HAND
Gibberish. I'll assume it's something deeply philosophical and humorous.
*edit*
I stand corrected - this seems to be an acronym used by spotty teenagers for "You Have Been Trolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day". It seems the passion for texting in today's youth has degraded even the passing literacy one would hope for in one struggling with puberty.
As I understand it, this statement is used to claim victory after presenting an idiotic and/or purposefully inflammatory statement. The real question is - did you post your claim that I don't understand the meaning of schadenfreude as an inflammatory statement? Or did you do so out of ignorance and are making a crude attempt to cover your failure by presenting it as trolling and claim victory? I think that is easily answered by Osito's application of Occam's Razor.
Well done, jp. Well done. You're a comedian of such esoteric heights as to soar above the intellect of the poor uneducated fools here on the forums (nobody, it seems, got your joke). Or you're an idiot trying to cover his foolishness with an improperly punctuated acronym. I'll leave others to make their decision as to which you are. For me, Occam's Razor cleaves definitively to one side.
ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
2) I believe schadenfreude means particularly taking pleasure from the misfortune of your enemy, because that is the context in which it is commonly used
Wrong.
Malice is not a requirement for schadenfreude. One does not need a feeling of antipathy to feel schadenfreude. I often see one friend suffering from a hangover. My sense of amusement at his suffering does not mean that I feel anything but affection towards him.
"Gloating is differentiated from Schadenfreude in that it does not necessarily require malice (one may gloat to a friend about having defeated him in a game without ill intent) and that it describes an action rather than a state of mind (one typically gloats to the subject of the misfortune or to a third party)."
With this in mind, I don't bear any malice towards EH. It's mainly annoyance at his posts in which he repeatedly answers questions as if he knows the answer but is demonstrably wrong. And when one proves he is wrong, he rejects the evidence of his error and continues to insist that he's right. This behaviour - keeping one's belief (that he's right) in the face of evidence to the contrary, I can only describe as sad and delusional.
One point to mention with your differing (differing from mine as well as all sources I have found) interpretation of schadenfreude - your contesting of the definition does rather undermine your claim in #1 above.
You can't have it both ways - it was trolling (you correctly understand what it means and were just trolling), or you genuinely thought I was wrong (not trolling, but ignorance). See above to Occam's Razor. The side of the razor for your "trolling" claim is becoming perilously thin.
ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
To take joy in the misfortunes of others regardless would just be sociopathic. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you are neither EH's enemy nor a sociopath.
You don't understand what "sociopath" means. Sociopathy is quite different from schadenfreude. Sociopathy is mainly an absence of empathy and an extreme form of solipsism, in the sense that the individual sees himself as the sole point of reference in all matters. What happens to the sociopath is of importance, and any event affecting another is only measured as it affects the sociopath. That's one reason why sociopaths do quite well in banking and law - they're quite unaffected by seeing others suffer by engaging in practices which causes that suffering. Or that's my understanding.
I can't speak for EH, but despite the cornucopia of psychological issues which ail me, sociopathy is not among them... but if I were a sociopath, I'd say that, yes?
ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
3) I always post in jest. Never doubt that. See 1.
Your punch-line delivery needs some work.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ― Christopher Hitchens